Michael Shanks - site 2006: Some notes on landscape syntheses, February 22

Four landscape syntheses:

Travelogue—In the late 18th and early 19th centuries the travelogue was a mixed genre that appealed simultaneously to a more general readership and to a more demanding scientific society. Even though the day-by-day narrative of potential danger, toil, and intrigue was popular among a wider audience, the form was also conducive to laying out what was deemed worthy of observation and record in the course of one’s travels. [link]

Topographical memoir—in the early 19th century a new genre of descriptive geography arose ‘designed to assist in the administration of a newly conquered territory’ (1999, 159). In the case of the French Expedition to the Greek Morea, the topographical memoir contained information on natural species, geological resources, the constitution of the soil (in order to understand the potential productive capacity of the land), demography, local politics, ancient to contemporary history, agriculture (in the form of crops, labor, technology and especially any surplus over sustenance), statistical knowledge, fortifications, ancient ruins, sources of freshwater and other sundry geographical details. This synthesis was directed toward aspects of geographical concern that might play a role in relations between the state (military) and local populations. In all, the topographical memoir needed to be accompanied by a precise and comprehensive map. [link]

Chorography was common among early antiquarians in the Northern European tradition familiar with the use of the term in Strabo, we are referring a practice of describing, delineating, and documenting a region and specifically in relation to the archaeological features encountered as one walks the land. [link]

Topology is a vectoral movement between points where various pasts come together. But this is not free association, rather one builds to a broader lesson. A mathematics of association. A way of dealing with the multitemporality of a place as it is. [link]